Kuno Becker on the 'Goal!' trilogy & more - about.com 5/10/06

Touchstone Pictures

"Goal! The Dream Begins" Star Kuno BeckerDiscusses the Soccer Movie

from Fred Topel
about.com

Goal! The Dream Begins may provide two simultaneous dreams beginning. Santiago Munez gets to fulfill his dream of playing professional soccer and Kuno Becker fulfills his dream of being in a big movie. He plays Santiago, a Mexican immigrant who breaks tradition to follow his heart with a little help from the Newcastle United talent scouts.

Kuno Becker Describes How He Got Involved in "Goal! The Dream Begins": “Man, it was the most difficult thing in the world. Not only competitive, but also soccer-wise was really, really hard. I didn’t play a lot of soccer when I was a kid. I did play when I was in school but nothing professional. So I had to do a couple of auditions, like normal auditions, and then when I got the role…or at least half of the role. They said, ‘Okay, now can you play soccer?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can play soccer.’
I had to do this audition for two weeks in England with the real team, with the Newcastle United, the team of the film. I had to train with them for a couple weeks to do another audition, a soccer audition. I broke my ankles because I was training so hard, so many hours a day, that I had stress fracture. I couldn’t even walk, forget about playing soccer. So it was really, really, really hard.”

Signing on to the Goal! Trilogy: “They told me from the beginning it was going to be a trilogy. I knew that so the challenge was to make my character evolve and change throughout the story instead of just playing the same guy three times. I think that’s very dangerous. It wouldn’t be interesting for the audience, too. The most important thing also is that this is a story and you have to remember that it’s about emotions, feelings, relationships and people have to relate to it. If it was just a bunch of guys playing soccer, it wasn’t going to be interesting.
What I think is interesting about this one is that this is a story of what happens inside of the soccer world, instead of just a bunch of guys playing soccer. And in the second one, I wanted to see him change.